Brant Rustich - The Intangibles of a Big Leaguer

First, I want to apologize for being absent. I'm proud to say I've finished my degree at UCLA. Who says former professional baseball players don't go back to school!? In addition, I've been working very hard with my younger brother, Derek Rustich, who is a top baseball prospect committed to Texas Tech and currently a Senior at Grossmont High School here in San Diego, California. Working with him has been enjoyable and coaching him on the side has given me a whole different perspective to this game. I think I will be coaching in the near future, so I wanted to share some of the things I've been able to learn throughout my playing career that I would like to engrain in my future players.

During my five-year career with the New York Mets, I had seen a lot of players come and go. As I played along side other professionals, I constantly evaluated them as I evaluated myself. When a player was released, I tried to analyze why they were let go, so I could learn and better myself. I figured out there were certain intangibles that made a big league baseball player and I've been able to see it with many of the players that I've played against and along side over the years. Now I watch them on television, many of which are my friends currently on the New York Mets roster.

We all know that talent is the number one intangible to become a big league baseball player. Without talent, you probably don't even get an opportunity to play professionally. However, this is far from being the only intangible necessary to get to The Show. Along with talent, other intangibles include the mental game, work ethic, and health. There are many sub-categories to these four main intangibles that I will expand on throughout this article. 

Unfortunately, one of the toughest pill for any competitor to swallow is simply being told you aren't talented or good enough to play at a certain level. Whether it's club ball, high school, college, or professional, sometimes the road ends because you just don't have what it takes physically to compete. Even worse, you possess all of the other intangibles necessary, but maybe your fastball just doesn't have the velocity. Maybe you lack the speed, strength, or the hitting ability. In any case, talent will always further your career as scouts and coaches hope you can develop the other intangibles necessary to be successful at the highest level you can play.

Someone may argue that we see exceptionally talented big leaguers who may lack on some of the other three intangibles, simply because they are just so incredibly talented. I would agree that someone may be so naturally talented they don't need the intense work ethic to play in the big leagues. Sometimes, a little simple batting practice, daily ground balls, and walking around the weight room is enough for those with exceptional talent to get there. However, I will argue, if you want to have a long, healthy, and successful career, the other intangibles will play a major factor. As a player, there will always be someone more talented than you. So never fall into the trap that you are so good that you don't need to work hard. 

The second intangible is the very complex mental game, which possesses many sub-categories. The mental game can be the most frustrating for baseball players, as it can be the most challenging. It encompasses confidence, competitiveness, toughness, the ability to learn, awareness, visualization, in-game management, and adjustability are just some of the many sub-categories within the mental game intangible.

In my humble opinion, if you don't have confidence in yourself, you will not be successful doing anything in life. Confidence is an attribute that can really extend into any profession, not just in baseball. You have to find something you are confident in doing. It's always tough to see a kid, or even a grown man, lack the self-confidence to perform and execute in a given situation. Sometimes it can be due to their lack of preparation, lack of work ethic, or maybe it's the fear of failure. Sometimes confidence can come across cocky to some, but I believe in regards to athletics, I'd rather have a cocky player, than a player who lacks confidence.

I would say that competitiveness is the driving force, or even the foundation for an athlete. The thrill of victory and agony of defeat is something that greatly motivated me throughout my career. I can't tell you how great it felt to win or even better, knowing you were directly responsible and contributed to the victory or even a championship. It's that feeling that made me love baseball more than anything. It why I believe organized baseball for a young player is so important. Playing to win is something that was engrained in me from my father at a very young age. Losing was unacceptable, and I'm sure some people will always say, "it's only a game." You are right, but it's a game that I play to win.

Psychology legend, Sigmund Freud said it's our natural aggressive instinct as human beings that we compete and fight with one another. I would say that is true. Aggressive personalities flood the professional ranks, and I believe it does take a competitive aggressiveness to play this game. Aggressiveness was something I personally fed on as a baseball player. You must compete with yourself to be the best you can be. Without that competitive drive, or the will to win, then you are lacking in the mental game necessary to be a big leaguer.

As we all know, the baseball season is long and grueling. Most of the time you don't feel your best, or anywhere close to 100%. That is where the mental toughness will play a major factor. Some people just don't have it. When they are feeling anything less than 100%, they fall apart. This is something I saw first hand with many players. For instance, the playing conditions weren't perfect. Maybe it was raining. Maybe they were sore and lacked their quality stuff. Their mental toughness would collapse and they would be defeated before the game even started. Typically it ended with them making up excuses for their shitty performance. The ball was wet. The mound sucked. Or my favorite, I was sweating too much. It's your job to make the adjustments necessary to be successful because your competition will.

The ability to learn and make adjustments is so important in baseball. I can't tell you how many times I've seen players you could seriously call mentally insane. The definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".  It's like watching a pitcher who throws four consecutive fastballs high to walk a hitter. Adjustments come pitch to pitch in this game. If you are going to do the same unsuccessful thing over and over, then your insane and obviously don't have the mental game intangible. It's very frustrating to see a player with all the intangibles, but they don't have the ability to make quick adjustments. I always wanted to jump in their brain, or just shake them really hard. Take a step back and have some self-awareness, and make the appropriate adjustment to successfully execute what you are trying to do. This doesn't mean over-think the situation. This is something you are prepared for through hard work and practice. That's why in practice you must work on your mental game adjustments, which I could write a book about. It's a skill that can be trained, and often times it's not. 

I always felt visualization was vital part of the mental game. To see yourself execute a pitch, or visualize a pitch being thrown to you, in a certain count, with runners here or there, was all part of the visualization process I used to be successful. If you visualized something before it happened, I can't begin to describe how much slower it would unfold at game speed. I remember as a hitter in high school, having an approach and visualizing a certain pitch or a location. When I actually got it, it would become a deja-vu experience. Like I had been there before. One of my favorites was visualizing throwing an inside fastball to freeze a big time, middle of the lineup, left-handed hitter in a critical situation. I could honestly see the umpire calling strike three in my brain before I even threw the pitch. Rather than worrying about the outcome or failure, I was already successful in my head. This is something I believe all the greatest athletes and big league baseball players possess.

Something that always drove me nuts as a player is when a fellow teammate told me how upset they were that they were assigned to at a certain level in pro ball (A, A+, AA, etc). Something I always tried to do was focus on the process. It didn't matter what the situation was, what level I was playing, I always told myself to pitch in the big leagues, I need to pitch like a big leaguer. The rest will fall into place. Would it matter if Albert Pujols was placed in rookie ball? Would he still be a "big league" calibre player? Other than it being comical, he is a big league hitter no matter where he is. 

As we see, the mental game comprises of many sub-categories that could almost be considered separate intangibles. Yet, it's all these important factors that I believe we can lump in the mental game category. Either you have it, or you don't. I've witnessed first hand many talented players who worked extremely hard, were completely healthy, but simply didn't have the mental game necessary to be successful. 

I've already mentioned how important work ethic is and how it ties into the other intangibles. Unfortunately, working hard isn't something everyone has engrained in them. Many times there are people who are lazy by nature, or they get complacent. I think complacency is something I'd more often describe a baseball player. Often times I feel players get complacent with success, or perhaps they are burnt out. In baseball, you will have bad days! The greatest athletes use hard work to turn negatives into positives.

In baseball or in life, you have to be able to handle adversity. When everything is clicking, and things are going well, it's easy to work. A true competitor is someone who works even harder when things aren't going well. Maybe it's an injury, poor performance, or a slump. Successful players tackle their problems with hard work.

Baseball takes a lot of practice, and more than anything, it takes incredible sacrifice. It's hard to sacrifice the luxuries of life to focus on the process to be a big leaguer. Maybe it means you can't have the same weekend as your friends growing up because you are busy playing club baseball. Maybe you can't go to that party on Friday night because you have a big game tomorrow and there will be scouts in the stands. Maybe you can't date that girl because she wants more of your time than you can give her. These are all sacrifices I'm very familiar with. 

Last, the final intangible is one I'm quite familiar with, health. Unfortunately, if you aren't healthy or have chronic injuries that keep you off the field, it could just be that it wasn't meant to be. However, I believe there are certain things that we control to help prevent injuries. Staying hydrated, being flexible, and having proper mechanics are all factors we can control as athletes. This means if you go out the night before a game, drink some beers, and get a few hours of sleep, you are not doing what it takes to prevent a potential injury. Arriving early to stretch and warm-up properly are just some of the many methods you can do to help reduce the chance for injury. 

The one factor I believe is uncontrollable is simple genetics. Sometimes no matter how hard you train to stay healthy, you out perform your own genetics and fall apart. Unfortunately for me, I pitched for years with an undiagnosed nerve, and artery compression in my thoracic outlet of my right arm. When it was finally surgically corrected by the removal of my upper rib and a neck muscle, the nerve damage was irrecoverable. Nerves don't just come back overnight, and my baseball career was over. I always ask myself was there something else I could have done to prevent this from happening, but the more I analyze it, the more I know I did everything I could. 

To play baseball everyday in this modern era, it takes a toll on your body. Pitching velocity is stressed more than ever. The strike zone is smaller and forces pitchers to get hitters out by throwing pitches over the plate. That means pitcher's "stuff" needs to be that much better. Fastballs need more velocity and movement. Breaking balls need sharper break. Change-ups are now a must to every starting-pitchers arsenal. The more we continue to ask of athletes, the more we will see them breakdown due to simple genetics. Unfortunately, not all of us are born with Nolan Ryan genetics. That was a tough pill for me to swallow.